ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="keywords" content="uneven days, unevendays"> <meta name="description" content="Uneven Days"> <title>Uneven Days - Capacocha</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../standard.css"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico"> </head> <body><div class="imagehead"> <img src="../unevendays.gif" alt="unevendays"></div> <div class="nav"> <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/unevendays">Music</a></div> <div class="nav1"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1052328">Books</a></div> <div class="nav2"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/unevendays/">Photos</a></div> <div class="nav3"><a href="http://unevendays.livejournal.com/">Blog</a></div> <div class="nav4"><a href="../writing/index.html">Other Writings</a></div> <div class="nav5"><a href="http://books.dreambook.com/zaf/unevendays.html">Guestbook</a></div> <div class="nav6"><a href="mailto:kindle@unevendays.co.uk">Contact</a></div> <div class="navhome"><a href=../index.html">Home</a></div> <div class="main"> <div class="head">High Wire Walker</div>[ <a href="index.html">Writing</a> ] [ <a href="../index.html">Home</a> ]<br><br> The Great Valerio didn t speak much, and when he did it was easy to see why. His lilting Welsh accent was very much out of keeping with his assumed identity as an exotic Italian and famous circus performed that had proved so successful for him.<br><br> I had always, I think, been in love with him, from the day he came to the Fair. He called himself Valerio even then. I was a child of five, he was thirteen. A runaway, they thought, who was in love with the romance of joining the circus. But what runaway would walk the high wire like Val could? <br><br> I was infatuated with him and followed him like a silent echo wherever he went. I especially liked to watch him practice on his low wire. The other boys teased him unmercifully, but he never tried to send me away. Instead, he taught me the art from which he made a living: walking the high wire. I had so many grand plans. I would join him on the high wire and we would be a team. And we would be married. <br><br> I started on a flat rope that Val made me toddle along until I could do so without teetering. Of course, as a circus girl, my balance was much better than a normal five year old, so before long I was walking along a rope raised just off the ground. <br><br> Val was the star attraction of our Fair  he drew a larger audience than the bears and Carlotta (the beautiful Spanish trick horse rider) combined. He walked the high wire with no fear and never used a safety net. He would run and dance supported by this one wire in the air almost as if he could fly, as if it didn t matter if he lost his footing. On occasion, he would pretend to teeter on the brink of losing his balance, windmill his arms, and then straighten with a smile. We all breathed a sigh of relief, even us circus folk who had seen him walk the wire many times. He was a master of his art.<br><br> It wasn t his skill that I loved him for. I loved him for smaller things, for his smile, the smattering of freckles on his nose, the way he treated the old mare that pulled his caravan, his wry sense of humour. <br><br> I m trying to tell you a little about Val, not The Great Valerio. Val always tried to stay in persona, which was why he rarely spoke and why he always made sure his skin was dark from the sun. But he never was The Great Valerio other than for those few moments when he walked the wire. <br><br> Yes, I know, you want to hear what happened. I m getting to that, but you need a sense of who Val was and who he tried to be before you can understand that.<br> <br><br><br> It was a crisp October morning when the first indications that something was wrong appeared. I went out to take Val some bread I had bought from the village. I called to him, but he didn t answer. I thought he was just deep in his practice. We ate the bread together and talked about nothing, and then he went back to his practising and I went back to my daily tasks. I thought no more of it. <br><br> The second time, I was less ready to dismiss it. There was obviously something wrong. Val was moody and withdrawn. He was practising obsessively, rarely rested, and looked constantly tired. Nobody else seemed to realise how wrong something was. He always made time for me, though, but I tactfully avoided the subject. If he wanted to confide in me, he would do so in his own time. He did, of course, eventually.<br><br> He told me that he was losing his hearing, that each day it faded a little more. That his balance was not as good as it used to be because of it. I offered sympathy, insisted he see a doctor (who took all the money we could pool and pronounced incurable hearing loss) and persuaded him to take some time off from the ring.<br><br> I couldn t keep him from it for long. He practised ceaselessly until he could stand it no longer and returned to the ring and the wire. <br><br> You were there, weren t you? That s why you want to hear this story so badly, isn t it? So you remember how brilliant he was, how graceful. You remember that moment, when he turned that last time.<br><br> And fell. <br><br> [ <a href="index.html">Writing</a> ] [ <a href="../index.html">Home</a> ]<br><br> </div> </body> </html>